Sleepless in San Francisco (not to mention Sydney, Grey Lynn and Hawke's Bay)

(First published in the Manawatu Standard and on Stuff.co.nz, March 18).

Not long ago, my wife and I spent a largely sleepless Saturday night in a Hawke’s Bay motel. The experience confirmed one of two things: either we’re lousy judges of places to stay, or we’ve been condemned by a vindictive god to share accommodation with the most inconsiderate fellow guests on the planet.

I admit there have been times when the former explanation may have been true. There was a memorable night many years ago when we ill-advisedly booked into a budget-priced San Francisco hotel where every other room appeared to be occupied by hard-partying Mexicans.

Our fellow guests caroused with such manic energy that you could have been excused for thinking they’d been told the Apocalypse was imminent and they were determined to make the most of their final hours. Riotous festivities raged all around us throughout the night, the din so all-encompassing that for much of the time we couldn’t identify exactly where it was coming from. Sometimes it seemed to be from the floor above us, sometimes below, and sometimes on the same level.

At times the revelry took on the character of a moving carnival, briefly subsiding in one part of the hotel before suddenly erupting with renewed vigour somewhere else. We felt as if we had blundered into a madcap celebration that involved everyone in the building except us.

Two or three times in the course of a long night I phoned the unfortunate clerk on the desk. He was sympathetic but there wasn’t much he could do in the face of such formidable odds.

I can’t recall whether we got any sleep. What I do know is that when we passed through San Francisco again a couple of weeks later, I made sure we booked into a reputable chain hotel where we could expect order to prevail.

Then there was the night when we stayed in a hotel in downtown Sydney. This time we were kept awake by male guests barking into their phones all night in what sounded like an Eastern European language. This was punctuated by the sound of doors being slammed shut or loudly banged on. My wife was convinced that our fellow guests were members of an international drug cartel setting up a deal, in which case they were the most comically indiscreet criminals since Pulp Fiction.

Perhaps hardened – or more likely discouraged – by our San Francisco experience, I didn’t bother complaining to the desk.

I could have confronted our tormentors, but there were several of them and one of me. I had to weigh up the moral certitude of having right on my side against the unpleasantness that would result if they took exception to being told off. I mean, what if they really were hardened criminals packing Glock pistols?

So, cravenly rationalising that it was for only one night, we decided to tough it out.

The scene now shifts to Auckland – to a motel in Grey Lynn. We were woken in the early hours by anguished and prolonged caterwauling from below us. A woman visiting a ground-floor unit had outstayed her welcome and been ejected. Now she was standing in the carpark wailing at the top of her voice and piteously imploring to be let back in, insisting – improbably – that she lived there.

The police were eventually called and the unfortunate woman, who appeared to be under the influence of some mind-altering substance, was persuaded to leave quietly.

Tribulations like these have led us to ponder whether such experiences are commonplace or – a more likely explanation – that we’re somehow jinxed. Certainly, we have learned to exercise caution in choosing accommodation.

Alas, that’s no guarantee of anything. The Hawke's Bay motel we stayed in not long ago was respectable and well managed, but we still had to suffer the familiar Saturday night curse of inconsiderate guests returning after a night of revelry, shouting to each other and noisily banging on doors. 

This time, though, we experienced something new and bizarre. At about 3am we were woken by the sound of a diesel motor idling immediately outside our door.

When the noise persisted, I went outside to check. Sure enough, there was a ute parked with its motor running – and no sign of a driver. It was as if the Marie Celeste had been reincarnated in the form of a Ford Ranger. 

Having no idea where the driver might be, I went back to bed. Not long after, we heard someone get into the vehicle, emphasising his indifference to sleeping guests by slamming the ute’s door as he did so, and drive off.

That was at about 3.30am. At last we could look forward to some undisturbed slumber.

Ha! Fat chance. Five minutes later, though it was pitch dark, a blackbird began singing its heart out in a tree beside our unit's front door. It's true then: we're jinxed.